Addresses: National Research University Higher School of Economics, Myasnitskaya str., 20, 101000, Moscow, Russia. ' National Research University Higher School of Economics, Myasnitskaya str., 20, 101000, Moscow, Russia

Abstract: During the last decade, the role and meaning of research and technology organisations (RTOs) and their contribution to the innovation potential of countries has been questioned. In this paper, RTOs are understood as organisations with significant core government funding (25% or greater) which supply services to firms individually or collectively in support of scientific and technological innovation and which devote much of their capability (50% or more of their labour) to remaining integrated with the science base (Hales, 2001). Transitional economies like Russia face substantial challenges with national and regional innovation policies for supporting and enabling knowledge transfer. In this context, RTOs often maintain obsolete behavioural schemes of non-market public institutions isolated from the real economic sector. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate and explain some unexpected knowledge transfer phenomena crucial for efficient regional innovation policies using Russian RTOs as example.